A poignant look at the disillusionment and angst of the post World War I generation the novel introduces two of Hemingway s most unforgettable characters Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley The story follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of s Paris to the brutal bullfighting rings of Spain with a motley group of expatriates It is an age of moral bankruptcy spiritual dissolution unrealized love and vanishing illusions First published in b The Sun Also Rises b is i an absorbing beautifully and tenderly absurd heartbreaking narrative a truly gripping story told in lean hard athletic prose i The New York Times .

Jake Barnes Hemingway s narrator with a mysterious war wound that has left him sexually incapable is the heart and soul of the book Brett the beautiful doomed English woman he adores provides the glamour of natural chic and sexual unattainability Alcohol and post World War I anomie fuel the plot weary of drinking and dancing in Paris caf s the expatriate gang decamps for the Spanish town of Pamplona for the i wonderful nightmare i of a week long fiesta Brett with fianc and ex lover Cohn in tow breaks hearts all around until she falls briefly for the handsome teenage bullfighter Pedro Romero i My God he s a lovely boy i she tells Jake i And how I would love to see him get into those clothes He must use a shoe horn i Whereupon the party disbands .

b The Sun Also Rises b first appeared in and yet it s as fresh and clean and fine as it ever was maybe finer Hemingway s famously plain declarative sentences linger in the mind like poetry i Brett was damned good looking She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt and her hair was brushed back like a boy s She started all that i His cast of thirty something dissolute expatriates Brett and her drunken fianc Mike Campbell the unhappy Princeton Jewish boxer Robert Cohn the sardonic novelist Bill Gorton are as familiar as the cool crowd we all once knew No wonder this quintessential lost generation novel has inspired several generations of imitators in style as well as lifestyle .

b Note This is an illustrated edition of the book for an engaging read